


Ficlet: Before Dawn

by Jacqueline Albright-Beckett (xaandria)



Series: Between The Lines [27]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Touching, human!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8502037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaandria/pseuds/Jacqueline%20Albright-Beckett





	

Dean used to be a deep sleeper. He didn’t know when that had changed — probably in Purgatory, if he really thought about it — but it didn’t take much to jerk him awake anymore.

It was a motel room much like any other, with light slanting through the gap in the blackout curtain and the too-bright green LED on the smoke alarm stabbing his eyes after the darkness behind his eyelids. Blinking hard, Dean pushed himself up on one elbow, casting sleep-heavy eyes about the room to discover what had awoken him, if it was a threat, and if it was, if he had time to pee first.

Everything seemed to be in order at first glance, but then the dark shape caught at the corner of his eye and he sat up completely in alarm before the recognition circuits kicked in.

“Cas?” he asked, his voice low and groggy.

“I’m fine.” Cas’s voice, on the other hand, was merely quiet, barely enough to carry across the narrow space between Dean’s queen-size bed and Cas’s rollaway. The dark shape shifted in a movement much like someone hugging their knees more tightly to their chest, and the rollaway bed creaked in response. “Go back to sleep.”

Not a threat. Time to pee.

Mind marginally clearer after his sojourn to the bathroom, Dean paused as he pulled aside his covers. Cas was still sitting up, forehead pressed against his knees, absolutely still and silent. The sheet and cheap velour blanket had come untucked from the bottom of the rollaway bed - possibly because, even as the shortest of the three of them, Cas was slightly too tall for the bed. Or maybe because he’d been thrashing in his sleep. Or some combination of the two.

Dean could hear Cas taking a slow, deep breath. Very controlled. The breath of someone trying desperately to calm down, to slow a racing heart, to calm the clamoring tumult that adrenaline had made of their body.

He had already rounded the bottom of his bed before Dean realized that he was moving. The rollaway tilted alarmingly as Dean lowered himself onto it, and Cas’s shoulders twitched in surprise, though he didn’t raise his head.

“Nightmare?” Dean asked softly.

Cas nodded, not lifting his forehead from his knees.

Hesitantly, Dean raised his hand and placed it on Cas’s back. It seemed like the thing to do, even if Dean wasn’t sure why. Cas flinched away from the touch at first before leaning into it, warm pressure against Dean’s hand that rose and lowered with Cas’s breathing.

He could have said anything.  _I feel you, man_ _._  Or,  _that sucks_. Or he could have ventured into dangerous chick-flick territory with  _tell me about it_.

He didn’t. The need to break the silence burned the roof of his mouth, but he kept it shut. His outstretched arm began to ache, but he didn’t move it, just kept resting his hand lightly against Cas’s back.

It was Cas who spoke first, rolling his shoulders back as he unclenched his hands from around his shins, stretching his legs. “Thank you.”

Dean could feel the muscles coiling beneath Cas’s skin, the shoulder blades sliding. He didn’t want to move his hand. He made a fist and punched Cas’s shoulder gently before standing, his palm still warm, fingers curled against it as though to save the warmth for something later.

His own sheets still held some of his body heat as he slid between them, but even after punching his pillow into a more satisfying shape, he lay awake for a long time, until he heard Cas’s breathing grow slow and regular. Only then did his eyelids grow heavy and his hand uncurl, the feel of Cas’s back against his palm escaping into the silent moments before dawn.


End file.
